Computer applications, such as ERP, CRM, SRM and other business management applications, perform functions that are inter-related. For example, in an ERP application, a user may make a vendor purchase of materials that will be used in a product that will be delivered to a customer. The customer may be managed using a CRM application that may contain data related to the product to be delivered to the customer. In the integrated business environment, the ERP application may send a message to the CRM application indicating that a data record within the CRM application needs to be updated, such as an accounts receivable entry or some other data record.
In conventional systems, these messages are only reviewable by information technology (IT) specialists, not the business people that are responsible for the data within the data records that are the subject of the messages. Therefore, the responsible business people may not be aware, or made aware, of errors that may occur with the messages or delays in processing the message without intervention by an IT specialist. This can be particularly troublesome during an audit or when accounts must be balanced. Most errors are based on the fact that the configuration or the attributes of master data in the receiving application do not allow the processing of the message, e.g. the message wants to update data in a cost center and this cost center is blocked for any update.
Accordingly, there is a need for an application that without outside intervention allows a business user to monitor message traffic related to commonly, or frequently, used applications, and to reconcile the data records related to the messages between the various integrated computer applications.